"At the demand of the pagan mob they were first scourged; then a bear, a boar, and leopard were set at the men, and a wild cow at the women.”
Author: Michael Yost
Michael Yost is a poet and essayist living in rural New Hampshire with his wife and children. He is earning his M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of St. Thomas in Houston Texas. His essays and poems have been published in places like The University Bookman, Dappled Things, Crisis Magazine, the St. Austin Review, The Brazen Head and Hearth and Field. He also writes at https://poetryofmichaelyost.substack.com/
Penance (Version II)
A Prayer
Who Only Stand and Wait
He buried the coin alone, down in a field, / As mothers bury stillbirths; partly shamed, / He cursed and grumbled as he dug and kneeled / Because a part of him lay dead, unnamed ...